Showing posts with label Slaves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slaves. Show all posts

Sunday, February 9, 2014

RAN AWAY from the subscriber on the night of the 13th inst. 1814, a Mulatto Woman called BETSEY COLE



FORTY DOLLARS REWARD.[1]

               RAN AWAY from the subscriber on the night of the 13th inst. a Mulatto Woman called BETSEY COLE, aged about nineteen years; she is uncommonly handsome and has long black curly hair; and carried with her a blue striped country cloth frock, a drab cloth shawl and other clothing.  Also went off at the same time a Mulatto Boy, named LEWIS, about 17 years old;  he has a conspicuous mark under his right eye, occassioned by the kick of a horse, which has blackened the skin; he has black curly hair and is very small for his age — his clothing consisted of a drab great coat, one pair mixed cloth pantaloons, a brown over jacket and plumb colored coatee —  Twenty dollars will be paid for either of the above runaways if taken without this district and ten dollars if within it.
                                                                           ALEXANDER MOORE.
               Alexandria, Jan 21 _ [?][2]



[1] $40.00 in 1814 was equal to appr. $413.00  in 2010.

[2] Daily National Intelligencer; Date: 02-09-1814; Volume: II; Issue: 345; Page: [1]; Location: Washington (DC), District of Columbia.

Transcribed by John Peter Thompson, February 9th, 2014.


Sunday, January 19, 2014

James Enslaved Negro of Isaac Duckett, Prince George's County, Maryland Runaway Ad National Intelligencer, January 19, 1814

James
Enslaved Negro of Isaac Duckett, Prince George's County, Maryland
Runaway Ad
National Intelligencer, January 19, 1814


100 DOLLARS REWARD. [1]

               Absconded, Dec. 26th, 1813, from the subscriber's farm, Prince Georges [sic] County, Md near Queen Anne, about 22 years old, very small for his age, perhaps not more than four feet six feet high, strong and active, stout legs, dark mottled skin; had on, when he absconded, round-a bout [sic] and pantaloons of country made cloth, cotton work and wall fitting, slightly fulled and died [sic], apparently brown or mixed, the warp not taking the die [sic] and the yarn apparently brown, coarse shoes and stockings. James has been accustomed to house-work, and is an excellent later.

               The above reward will be given for securing said negro in any gaol so that I get him again. 

                                                    ISAAC DUCKETT.       

               Dec 28                                              eoptf [2]



[1] one dollar in 2010 equaled approx. $10.344 in 1814.  http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/Documents/dollar/index.php?cyear=2010

[2] Daily National Intelligencer; Date: 01-19-1814; Volume: II; Issue: 327; Page: [1]; Location: Washington (DC), District of Columbia.

Transcribed by John Peter Thompson. January 19th, 2014.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

A Partial Bibliography - Agricultural and Political Life in Bladensburg, Maryland - 1814

Anon, 1836. A General History of the Tobacco Plant: Intended as an Authoritative Reference to Its Discovery, Dissemination, and Reception as a Luxury, Newcastle upon Tyne: Pattison and Ross. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=W-UWAAAAYAAJ.

Biddle, J.F., 1953. Bladensburg: An Early Trade Center. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., 53/56, pp.309–326. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067682.

Bozman, J.L., 1837. The history of Maryland: from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations, J. Lucas & E.K. Deaver.

Buchholz, H.E., 1908. Governors of Maryland: from the revolution to the year 1908, Williams & Wilkins company.

Calvert, R.S., 1992. Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, 1795-1821 illustrate. M. L. Callcott, ed., Johns Hopkins University Press. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=m9rxARyL5hcC.
Abstract: he book features letters from Rosalie Stier Calvert, a wealthy Belgian woman who married in to one of Maryland’s most prominent families after emigrating to America in the late 18th century. Her family ultimately returns home while she stays with her new husband, affording her the opportunity to write many letters detailing life in early America. ~ Book Review: Mistress of Riversdale By Brian. 


Carr, L.G. et al., 1991. Robert Cole’s World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland, Institute of Early American History and Culture. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=0eFwYcDLQigC.

Abstract: In 1652 Robert Cole, an English Catholic, moved with his family and servants to St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Using this family's story as a case study, the authors of Robert Cole's World provide an intimate portrait of the social and economic life of a middling planter in the seveneenth-century Chesapeake, including work routines and agricultural techniques, the upbringing of children, neighborhood relationships and community formation, and the role of religion. The Cole Plantation account, a record that details what the plantation produced, consumed, purchased, and sold over a twelve-year period, is the only known surviving document of its kind for seventeenth-century British America. Along with Cole's will, it serves as the framework around which the authors build their analysis. Drawing on these and other records, they present Cole as an exemplar of the ordinary planter whose success created the capital base for the slave-based plantation society of the eighteenth century.

Fields, B.J., 1985. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century, Yale University Press. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=DNd5_LRxjt8C.
Abstract: Probing the relationships among Maryland’s slaves and free blacks, its slaveholders, and its non-slaveholders, Fields shows how centrist moderation turned into centrist immoderation under the stress of the Civil War and how social channels formed by slavery established the course of struggle over the shape of free society. In so doing, she offers historical reflections on the underlying character both of slave society and of the society that replaced it.

Gottschalk, L.C., 1945. Effects of Soil Erosion on Navigation in Upper Chesapeake Bay. Geographical Review, 35(2), pp.219–238. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/211476.
Abstract: Alfred M. Rives, engineer in charge of a survey of bridges across the Potomac, who wrote, in 1857:13 Examination of old charts, as well as reflections upon the necessary operations of nature, convince me that these flats date from a period long antecedent to the erection of the cause? way. That they have increased rapidly during the past fifty years is but natural, when we consider what vast deposits must result from the freshet waters of the Potomac, now rendered doubly turbid from washing the shores of a highly cultivated region. It must be evident that ploughed hill sides furnish more alluvial deposit than unbroken forests or grassy slopes. By the operation of these and similar causes, many ports, formerly deep and accessible, now scarcely exist, of which Bladensburg, in our immediate vicinity, and others on our rivers of the Atlantic seaboard, are familiar examples.

Heidler, D.S. & Heidler, J.T., 2004. Encyclopedia of the war of 1812, Annapolis: U S NAVAL INST Press. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=_c09EJgek50C.

Holmes, O.W., 1948. Stagecoach Days in the District of Columbia. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., 50, pp.1–42. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067314.
Abstract: The stages met and exchanged passengers at a tavern in the vicinity of the present town of Laurel that was then kept by Thomas Rose.3 Here the passengers also dined. For the first few years the Potomac crossing was at Alexandria, not at Georgetown. From the Maryland side of the ferry the stage travelled up to Bladensburg on the road that ran east of the Anacostia River.4 The fare between Baltimore and Alexandria was $3.00. The proprietors “presumed this commodious and speedy method of travelling will meet with due encouragement,” but the trip apparently consumed the entire day.

Johnson, W., 1999. Soul by Soul, Harvard University Press. Available at: .
Abstract: The focus of this book is on nineteenth-century New Orleans and the slave market that emerged then and there. More than other workings of slavery, slave markets reduced humans to commodities with prices. In particular, this book is interested in the story of slave showrooms, which held up to 100 slaves and where appraisals, accountings, back-room dealings, and other activities took place. The book attributes the slave trade to mercantilism whereby colonial imports serviced and stocked metropolitan centers and generated profits secured for both state-sponsored companies and the monopoly-granting state itself. Companies with well-connected leaders and government ties could gain state privileges and favors and receive special monopoly licenses to dominate trade, first in goods such as tobacco, indigo, rice, cotton, coffee, and so on, and later in human beings. The ban of the international slave trade in 1808 did not lead to the reduction or softening of slavery, but rather to new shapes and manifestations of slavery, especially as slave populations moved increasingly from the upper to the lower South. The ban led, more importantly for the purposes of this book, to the domestic slave trade. The domestic slave trade intensified during the rise of the cotton kingdom. The price of slaves changed with the price of cotton until the 1850s.

King, J.A., 1997. Tobacco, Innovation, and Economic Persistence in Nineteenth-Century Southern Maryland. Agricultural History, 71(2), pp.207–236. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744247.

Kulikoff, A., 1986. Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800, University of North Carolina Press. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=NCvU9_bj-1QC.
Abstract: A major reinterpretation of the economic and political transformation of Chesapeake society from 1680 to 1800. Building upon massive archival research in Maryland and Virginia, Allan Kulikoff provides the most comprehensive study to date of changing social relations?among both blacks and whites?in the eighteenth-century South. He links his arguments about class, gender, and race to the later social history of the South and to larger patterns of American development.

McWilliams, J.W., 2011. Annapolis, City on the Severn: A History, Johns Hopkins University Press. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=9NJzbC_mlpkC.
Abstract: The story of Annapolis resonates in every century of American history. Annapolis has been home to tobacco plantations, political intrigue, international commerce, the U.S. Naval Academy, ballooning population growth, and colonial, state, and national government. Jane Wilson McWilliams’s captivating history explores Annapolis from its settlement in 1650 to its historic preservation campaign of the late twentieth century. McWilliams brings alive the people of Annapolis as she recounts their fortunes and foibles. Be they black or white, slave or master, woman or man, each has a place in this book. With unsurpassed detail and graceful prose, she describes the innermost workings of Maryland’s capital city—its social, civic, and religious institutions; its powerful political leaders; and its art, architecture, and neighborhoods.

Morgan, P.D. & Culture, O.I. of E.A.H. and, 1998. Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-century Chesapeake and Lowcountry, University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.
Abstract: Philip Morgan compares and contrasts African American life in these two regional black cultures, exploring the differences as well as the similarities. The result is a detailed and comprehensive view of slave life in the colonial American South. Morgan explores the role of land and labor in shaping culture, the everyday contacts of masters and slaves that defined the possibilities and limitations of cultural exchange, and finally the interior lives of blacks?their social relations, their family and kin ties, and the major symbolic dimensions of life: language, play, and religion. He provides a balanced appreciation for the oppressiveness of bondage and for the ability of slaves to shape their lives, showing that, whatever the constraints, slaves contributed to the making of their history. Victims of a brutal, dehumanizing system, slaves nevertheless strove to create order in their lives, to preserve their humanity, to achieve dignity, and to sustain dreams of a better future.

Morse, J. & Webber, S., 1802. The American Universal Geography: Or, A View of the Present State of All the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the Known World, and of the United States in Particular. In Two Parts ..., Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews; sold at their bookstore; by said Thomas in Worcester; by Thomas, Andrews & Butler in Baltimore, and by other booksellers.

Renzulli, L.M., 1973. Maryland: The Federalist Years, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=MsVZW6DJqpoC.
Abstract: The rise and fall of the Federalist Party in Maryland is detailed in this solid, traditional, narrative. Carefully documented, it examines the nature and voting patterns of the Federalist electorate in Maryland during the pre-Jacksonian era.

Riggs, J.B., 1946. Certain Early Maryland Landowners in the Vicinity of Washington. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., 48/49, pp.249–263 CR  – Copyright © 1946 Historical Soc. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40064099.

Riley, E.S., 1906. A history of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1635-1904, Baltimore: Nunn & Co.

Sarson, S., 2000. Landlessness and Tenancy in Early National Prince George’s County, Maryland. The William and Mary Quarterly, 57(3), pp.569–598. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2674266.
Abstract: In the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, the landless component of the free population in the tidewater Chesapeake grew from a third to more than half, and that trend continued after Independence.6 In Prince George’s County, the proportion of landlessness was almost 70 percent in i8oo, 67 percent in i8io, and 75 percent in i820 (see Tables I, III, and V).

Sarson, S., 2009. Yeoman Farmers in a Planters’ Republic: Socioeconomic Conditions and Relations in Early National Prince George's County, Maryland. Journal of the Early Republic, 29(1), pp.63–99. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40208239.

Taylor, J., 1814. Arator: Being a Series of Agricultural Essays, Practical & Political, in Sixty One Numbers 2nd ed., Gerogetown, District of Columbia: J.M. Carter. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=YFVHAAAAYAAJ. 

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

A long-lived life at Riversdale near Bladensburg - 120 years old in 1810


LONGEVITY

               Died on Sunday, the 120th instant. at the plantation of George Calvert, Esw. Prince George's county, negro JACK, in the 120th year of his age. - He retained every faculty in a remarkable degree to the last. [1]

Riversdale
Riverdale Park, Maryland 20737


[1] Federal Republican & Commercial Gazette; Date: 05-28-1810; Volume: II; Issue: 201; Page: [3]; Location: Baltimore, Maryland.
Transcribed by John Peter Thompson, May 15th, 2013. 

Friday, May 10, 2013

Blue-eyed Slave Runs Away from Plantation in the Vicinity of Upper Marlboro - May 10 1814


20 DOLLAR REWARD.

               Asconded [sic] from the subscriber, the latter part of March, Negro Frederick, sometimes calls himself Frederick Hall, a bright Mulatto, 21 years old, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, strait and well made, with a short chub nose, blue eyes and freckled. - His clothing was home spun cotton shirts, his jacket and pantaloons of cotton and yarn, twilled.  Since his elopement, he hired himself to Mr. Long, in Washington, as a waiter, where he stayed but a few days.  It is likely he may still be in the City of Georgetown, or he may have gone to Alexandria or Baltimore[1], in the latter place he has an acquaintance, sold about 2 years since to the Hon. Mr. Williams[2], a senator of Maryland.  The above reward will be paid for apprehending and committing him to jail
                                                                           BENJAMIN ODEN.[3]
               April 25-tf.[4]

Bellefields, Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Md Historical Trust




[1]  If he was able to get to Baltimore the most traveled route from Washington was through Bladensburg.
[2] perhaps refers to Nathaniel F. Williams:  Born March 14, 1782, in Roxbury Massachusetts. Some of Susanna and Joseph Williams. Graduated from Harvard College, 1801. Read law in Boston and Annapolis. Married Caroline Barney, daughter of Anne and Commodore Joshua Barney, 1809. Married Maria Pickett Dalrymple, 1829. At least four children. Unitarian. Died in Baltimore, on September 10, 1864. Attorney. Maryland Senate, Western Shore, 1811-1816. Private, Baltimore Fencibles, War of 1812; wounded at the Battle of North Point, 1814. Acting Attorney General of Maryland during illness of Luther Martin, 1820-1822. United States Attorney, District of Maryland, 1824-1841. Executive Council, 1835-1837. Maryland Senate, Baltimore City, 1853. Trustee, University of Maryland, 1826. Noted for his support of theaters in Baltimore. Archives of Maryland , (Biographical Series).

[3] Benjamin Oden (1762-1836) began operations in Prince Georges County as a business agent for Stephen West, Jr. (1727-1790), eventually marrying two of West's daughters and acquiring substantial lands in his own right. The home plantation, Bellefields, and a store Oden owned were in Upper Marlborough, Prince Georges County. Earliest papers show the conditions of Anglo-American trade, and subsequent materials concern land sales and acquisitions; tobacco sales and cultivation; slaves and slave management; banking; and family matters. Oden Papers, 1755-1836, Maryland Historical Society.

[4] Daily National Intelligencer; Date: 05-10-1814; Volume: II; Issue: 422; Page: [4]; Location: Washington (DC), District of Columbia.
Transcribed by John Peter Thompson, May 10th, 2013.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Counterfeit Bank Notes passed by Henry Bollinger in Prince George's County - Notice published May 1814


FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD

WILL be given by the subscriber for apprehending so that he may be brought to justice, HENRY BOLLINGER, who, on the 17th of February last, passed to the subscriber in payment of a negro woman, three fifty dollar counterfeit bank notes, purporting to be of the Bank of Virginia, payable at Richmond.  Said Bollinger, and his son, Henry Bollinger, it is believed, lives on the Mississippi river.  He was in company with his uncle, Jacob Bollinger, and his son, Henry Bollinger.  Whoever will apprehend, so that he may be brought to conviction, the said Henry Bollinger, shall receive the above reward of fifty dollars.  
                                                                                   THEOPHILUS TURTON.[1]
Prince George's county

                              March 14. 181[3] [2]
               March - eo3n [3]


[1] Turtun could be perhaps related to the Turton family of Nottingham, Prince George's County, Maryland. see:

[2] the last digit is obscured...it could be interpreted as a 3 or 5; and possibly has a 4 super imposed.

[3]  Daily National Intelligencer; Date: 05-07-1814; Volume: II; Issue: 420; Page: [1]; Location: Washington (DC), District of Columbia.
Transcribed by John peter Thompson, May 7th, 2013.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

News from nearby Virginia - March 27, 1813



SLAVES

On MONDAY. the fifth of April next, if fair; if not, the next da fair day; will be offered for sale, at the Tavern of Captain George Williams,[1] in this place, for ready money - FIFTY SLAVES - belonging to the estate of John Gibson,deceased; consisting of men, women and children.'

                              JOHN SPENCE,
                              JAMES REID,

               Executors of John Gibson.

Dumfires, March 4.[2]


Williams Ordinary, Colonial Dumfries, VA



[1]Waymarking.com Williams Ordinary, Colonial Dumfries, VA [Accessed March 27, 2013] http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMB9AY_Williams_Ordinary_Colonial_Dumfries_VA
 "Williams Ordinary is believed to have been built in the 1760s, although the exact construction date is unknown. The building's symmetrical facade features header bond, a brick pattern rarely found in Virginia. This building was one of the most prominent structures in colonial Dumfries and reflected the port town’s importance and wealth. While the building is known as Williams Ordinary, records are unclear as to whether local tavern keeper George Williams occupied the structure during the 1700s. The building’s name has changed to indicate various owners or uses. It has been called Love’s Hotel, Old Love’s Tavern, the Brick Tavern and the Stagecoach Inn. Research is ongoing.”
Colonial Dumfries
“Founded in 1749 by Scottish merchants, Dumfries’ port rivaled those of Boston and New York. Dumfries became the Prince William county seat in 1759. Sailors, slaves, merchants and members of the influential Lee, Fairfax, Mason and Washington families frequented the town. By 1763, falling tobacco exports and silt clogging the port began Dumfries slow economic decline.”
What’s an Ordinary?
“The term "ordinary" was common in Europe and early America. These establishments provided travelers with an ordinary meal and sleeping space. Such places were also called taverns and Inns. Ordinaries were the social centers of a community where patrons met and exchanged news. Many taverns operated in Dumfries, but those operating in this building were likely among the finest.”
Text taken from sign.
[2] Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political; Date: 03-27-1813; Volume: XIII; Issue: 3912; Page: [1]; Location: Alexandria, Virginia